From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

I'm Brooke Gladstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield.

This week, for the first time in this country, an entire execution was broadcast.

It was part of a program called The Execution Tapes, a public radio special report, a joint production of WNYC, which produces this program,

and the independent radio production company Sound Portraits.

The program included reports, panel discussions, and a national call-in,

but the centerpiece was the broadcast of the execution of Ivan Ray Stanley,

recorded in 1984 by the Georgia Department of Corrections. The broadcast was,

needless to say, controversial. Given WNYC's role and my own involvement, I produced two reports

for the special, there is no end to the conflicts of interest inherent in our attempt to

grapple with the controversy.

Nevertheless, we are devoting the first part of this hour to doing just that.

We begin with an excerpt of one of Brooks' reports with some history of the debate and how

public radio came to acquire and broadcast the execution tapes.

There was a time in America when attending a public execution was both possible and popular.

The last time was in Kentucky in the summer of 1936, when thousands of spectators gathered for the

hanging of young Rainy Bethea, convicted of rape.

Newspapers said it was a boisterous affair.

History tells us that's often so.

The unseemly celebrations may have been part of the reason

executions were taken behind closed doors.

...